Matt had ordered some Cold Steel longsword trainers, they came in, so this was our day to play with them.

It had been a while since any of us has actually worked on any German longsword material. I had been reading up on it for the past couple of months in prep for us starting. We did a quick review of some of the basics….the four wards, the basic cuts etc…

We then worked through a few plays from the bind into the grapple.

After the longsword we threw on our jackets for some sambo…

First off we worked on a throw which was an interesting variation on a thrown we have been doing since we started. I could not hope to put a name to this. We then went over a few variations on this variation:)

We ended the session with some ground work…the sambo switch and the double reversal. Both of these deal with single or double leg attempts that have gone horribly wrong.

I’ve added a library page for manuals, essays, etc…Nothing new there now, just some of the pieces from the old Geocities site for now. You may not have seen some of this for a while though so why not check out what I put up so far? Serbian wrestling, Parkyns, Wylde and Woodmans Pal.

Just Matt and I today and we are both on the injured reserve
list….so a definite need to take it kinda easy.

2 rds shadow boxing
3 rds sparring
2 rds freestyle footwork drills

We broke out the mountain axes and worked through all of the figure
eight motions that we use in both the right and left hand. Earlier
this week I took my CS Norse Hawk and replaced the short haft with a
sledge hammer handle that I had worked over a bit with a belt sander
giving it a more rectangular shape. I think the best CS hawk for this
conversion would probably be the small trail hawk.

We the took out the Lopatka or e-tool. Lopatka is the Russian name for
it and I think it lit means little shovel. We did a progressive drill,
e-tool vs bayonet, followed by the same type of idea against a knife.
We finished up with the e-tool held in more of an ice pick grip with
the blade along the forearm acting like a shield against the knife.

We left out the grappling again this week, my shoulder is still sore and Matt is getting over a broken collarbone from a motorcycle accident. Instead we brought out the knives again and went over the drills we had worked on last week.

Basic one for one parry thrust drill and a matador style thrust from the Castillian guard. We geared up a bit and upped the intensity from last week. We ended the session with some work using the e-tool, we worked through the triple round strike that I use with the shillelagh. Honestly this combination works great with any weapon…even very large two handed ones…and of course unarmed.

Short clip showing an interesting combination strike on the right hand side. The first strike is intended to bring the weaon down and the second two should capitalize on the lowered weapon…if all three strike then Bonus! This can be done on the left or outside as well…this is just abasic outline for the idea of a triple. Play with it and let me know what you come up with.